


Secrets

by msgenevieve



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Gen, Het, Missing Scene, season four
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-04
Updated: 2008-10-04
Packaged: 2017-10-14 09:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msgenevieve/pseuds/msgenevieve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They all made choices that brought them here, and they all have secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scribblecat](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=scribblecat).



> This is for scribblecat, who requested a certain conversation between Brad Bellick and Sara Tancredi.

~*~

 

“Hey, Sara, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Brad Bellick is standing a few feet away from her, looking decidedly nervous. “Uh, sure.” She hastily pushes aside the scribbled notes she’d been making for the last hour, wondering what has prompted him to seek her out. Judging by his hangdog expression and the fact he’s wringing his hands, she doubts it’s going to be a cheery conversation. _Great_ , she thinks churlishly, then quickly rebukes herself. Something is obviously troubling him, and he's decided to confide in her. The least she can do is to take the time to listen. "Take a seat?"

Brad pulls out the chair beside her, and eases himself into it. “I heard the guys talking this morning,” he says without preamble, and she feels her eyebrows rise. Daring a glance at her face, he adds a hasty addendum. “Lincoln and Michael. I heard them talking about Panama and how the Company had got their hands on you.”

Sara stares at him. She doesn’t know what niggles at her more, the fact that Michael and Lincoln were talking about her or that Brad Bellick overheard them. “Okay.”

“The thing is- ” He’s still wringing his hands, and she suddenly realises that his hangdog expression is actually something closer to shame. “I wasn’t gonna tell you this, because it’s ancient history, you know? But there’s something I gotta get off my chest.”

She’s suddenly whisked back three years in time, watching him bumble his way through an invitation to dinner, and her heart sinks. _Oh, no. Surely he’s not going to bring that up? Not now, not with everything else that’s happening._ “What is it?”

He studies his shoes for a long moment, then lifts his head to meet her eyes. “I was the one who put Mahone on your tail.”

Sara blinks. She’s relieved he didn’t bring up the whole Red Lobster thing, but on the other hand, this is a whole new can of worms. “What do you mean?”

Alarmingly, he looks as though he’s close to tears. “He came to me when I was banged up in the infirmary in Fox River, wanting me to help him decipher the code Scofield, uh, sorry, Michael had given you on the television as a trade for protection.”

She’s sitting down, but her head is still faintly spinning. “I’m sorry, when were you banged up in the infirmary?”

It’s his turn to stare. “You don’t know about that?” When she slowly shakes her head, he sighs loudly, then shrugs his shoulders. “Well, it’s a long story.”

She looks at his wretched expression and his glittering eyes, and recognizes the need to unburden an overloaded soul. “Tell me?”

He does.

With growing incredulity, she listens to his story of teaming up with Roy Geary (a CO she’d never, _ever_ liked, even after Michael had told her the truth about his burn) to hunt down T-Bag, how they’d gotten their hands on Charles Westmoreland’s money, how Geary had double-crossed him and paid the ultimate price by being murdered a few hours later. He tells her about being arrested and convicted and sent to Fox River in a matter of days (a ludicrous legal process that never should have been allowed), only to find himself thrown into Gen Pop with the cons whose lives he’d once made a misery.

That he wasn’t killed on his very first day is something of a miracle, Sara thinks. Then again, perhaps the inmates intended to drag out _his_ misery as long as possible.

He’d been lying in the infirmary, battered and bloodied after taking yet another beating, when Alexander Mahone had come to him with a tape of Michael and Lincoln, pushing it under his nose and demanding to know what Bellick could tell him about secret messages. Mahone had also waved a vague promise about protecting him, about getting him out of there, and Bellick had seen it for the last possible lifeline he had.

He looks at her now, barely able to meet her eyes. “I told him about the Big Book.”

Sara lets out her breath. Michael had told her – a lifetime ago now, it feels like – that he and Lincoln and Kellerman had had a close call at the hospital after he’d taken her call, and that he’d had no idea how Mahone had managed to decode his message so quickly. “It’s okay, Brad. Really.”

His eyes are gleaming, the tip of his nose red. “No, it’s not okay,” he tells her, his voice drenched with mortification. “I traded your freedom for mine, and that’s not right.” He looks around the warehouse that’s been their home for the last ten days, then back at her. “It’s my fault you’re here. Hell, I was even the one who told you about the damned job at Fox River in the first place!”

If she didn’t think it would be the worst possible timing ever, she’d be tempted to laugh. How many more men are going to tell her that it’s their fault she’s in this warehouse? “I chose to leave the infirmary door open that night, not you,” she tells him softly, and his mouth gapes at her words. “We all made choices that brought us here, Brad.” She gives what she hopes is a reassuring smile, praying he can’t tell that her own hands are clawed together in her lap, her head filled with blood-flecked visions of Gretchen’s pale, malevolent face. “Even me.”

He frowns. “But all the stuff that happened to you down in Panama-”

“-is over and done with,” she cuts him off smoothly, lying with an ease that should worry her a lot more than it does. “What’s done is done, okay?”

He studies her for a few seconds, as if he’s trying to decide if she’s on the level. Then he smiles at her, and she’s suddenly reminded of the man who had been so kind to her during all those group sessions. “You’re okay now, though, right? You’re not sick or anything like that?”

She thinks of the nightmares, how she wakes up with a scream on her lips almost every night, terrified despite the reassuring weight of Michael’s arm draped around her waist. “I’m fine,” she tells him, if only because it’s what he wants to hear. “Why do you ask?”

He opens his mouth to reply, then hesitates. “Uh, no reason,” he mumbles, his neck flushing a dull red. “I must have heard wrong.”

Confused, she stares at him, but he says nothing more, as if he’s waiting for her to ask a question of her own. “How about you?” she finally ventures. “From what Michael’s told me, Sona wasn’t exactly a pleasant place to be.”

Something dark flickers in his eyes, and she knows she’s asked the right question. “It wasn’t Club Med, that’s for sure,” he mutters unhappily, frowning at his hands. “My mum didn’t even know where I was, not until the shithole burned down and I managed to find a phone that actually worked.”

Her heart twinges, and there appears to be a lump in her throat. A lump in her throat over Brad Bellick, no less, proving that the world has indeed changed. “I bet she was happy to hear from you.”

He gives her a sheepish smile. “She drove all the way to New Mexico to pick me and Sucre up.”

She may have had many uncharitable _momma’s boy_ thoughts about him over the years, but it’s impossible not to return his smile. “She must love you very much.”

His eyes are glittering again. “Yeah.” Dashing his eyes with the back of one hand, he looks at her with undisguised hopefulness. “So, we’re cool?”

She nods, knowing that the forgiveness of a wrongdoing is sometimes just as important as facing the reality of the damage that’s left behind. “We’re cool.”

“Great.” He flops backwards in his chair, like a balloon that’s suddenly been deflated. “God, I need a beer.”

“I’m a bourbon fan, myself.” They share a complicate grin that only two people who’ve walked the steps can, then he shoves back his chair and gets to his feet.

“Well, uh, I’ll let you get on with what you’re doing there.” His familiar awkwardness has returned, but he’s standing a little straighter, a little taller, as though their exchange has made it easier to move freely.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Michael walking towards them, his gait uncharacteristically slow, as though he’s trying to give them time to finish their conversation. “Thank you.”

He gives her a jerky nod, and starts to turn away. Sara thinks of his mother driving all the way down to New Mexico to pick him up, and how lost he always seems, and before she knows what she’s doing, she’s lifting her hand to touch his arm. “Brad?”

He looks at her hand on his arm, then over his shoulder at Michael, then at her. “Yeah?”

“I think your mother would be very proud of you if she knew what you were doing here.”

He smiles, and she swears she can literally see his chest swell. “I think so, too.”

She watches him as he walks away, then turns her head to look at Michael. He’s clutching a roll of paper, his thumb restlessly clicking the pen in his right hand. He glances at Brad Bellick’s retreating figure, then at her. “Everything okay?”

Sara hesitates. It would be so easy to tell Michael everything she’s just learned, but something makes her hold her tongue. Brad’s secrets are not hers to tell, she decides, feeling an odd wave of protectiveness wash over her. She smiles up at Michael, knowing that he understands the importance of honoring a confidence better than most. “Everything’s fine.”

“That looked a little intense,” he says carefully, but it's obvious - at least to her - that he’s fishing for information.

She frowns, thinking of the conversation Brad had overheard, then shakes her head. “We just needed to clear the air a little,” she says lightly, then looks pointedly at the papers in his hand. “Have you got something for me?”

He nods. “I know it’s late, but I’m going to have to ask you to go over this very carefully while I work with Roland.” As he spreads yet another printout of the next cardholder’s incredibly convoluted calendar schedule out on the table in front of her, she glances over her shoulder to where Brad is now standing with Sucre, who is smiling and gesturing enthusiastically with his hands as he speaks. “Is that okay?” Michael’s looking at her anxiously, as he does so often, as though each time he’s worried that this request will be the one that pushes her over the edge.

 _They all made their choices_ , she thinks as she stares down at the printout, _and they’ve all got their secrets._ If the only secrets she’s keeping are that there are times when she'd sell her soul for a hit or a drink and that she can't close her eyes without seeing Gretchen’s face, she tells herself, then she’s ahead of the game. “Piece of cake.”

She’s rewarded by a grateful smile that warms her skin, then he moves off, leaving her alone with her research and the lingering feeling there are more secrets being kept in this warehouse than she could ever imagine.

 

~*~


End file.
